Voyage Through the Ash
by Noontide
Summary: They had been so sure of their victory over their enemies; feeling safe in the knowledge that they were free from the dangers of impending annihilation. They had forgotten that old saying about evil. It never dies, simply sleeps. Apocafic. Sam/Jack.
1. Prologue

Title: Voyages Through the Ash

Author: Noontide

Rating: T for now, but it could go up due to the nature of the story. I'll warn you ahead of time, so no worries.

Pairing/Characters: Sam/Jack, Team

Season: Post-Continuum, so spoilers for everything up until then.

Summary: They had been so sure of their victory over their enemies; feeling safe in the knowledge that they were free from the dangers of impending annihilation. They had forgotten that old saying about evil. It never dies, simply sleeps. Apocafic.

Author's Note: This is actually my third piece of fanfiction, but my first multi-chaptered work as well as my first foray into the Stargate fandom. I'm ambitious, I know. The bug for this particular story bit me while I was looking through mythology and thinking about what Jacob Carter said in Seth about the System Lords not being all of the Goa'uld out there. It struck me suddenly that with them out of the way, who is going to stop some other nasty snake from stepping forward and taking up that mantle? So, yeah, I guess you could call this Alternate Universe.

Well, read and review please. I'll respond to all reviews if I'm able. Keep in mind I might not be able to update quickly. I'm in art school full-time and will hopefully have a job soon. The prologue is short, but the chapters will be longer. No beta, so all mistakes are mine.

Disclaimer: I do not own anything related to Stargate SG-1. I'm simply playing in their sandbox for awhile. Don't sue me because all you'll get is lint and a penny from the year I was born.

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**Prologue**

She stood in the briefing room, facing the window with her back to everyone else, staring out at the Stargate as though she were hoping for some kind of miracle, which she was, if she was going to be honest with herself. They had gotten themselves out of situations like this before, after all. Still, the 'gate did not seem to be forthcoming with any Ancient secrets that might save them, and they were running out of time, if the tremors she could feel shaking the foundations of Cheyenne Mountain were anything to go by. They had been steadily building up for the last hour, ever since the first reports had begun pouring in from NORAD about the fleet of Ha'tak vessels that had suddenly dropped out of hyperspace and taken out the Apollo without warning.

The SGC had, since then, been a study in controlled panic. Now, exactly one hour after the ships had appeared, SG-1 had been unceremoniously told to report to the briefing room where they waited for General Landry to join them.

"Sam…I'm sure he's fine." Daniel might have been more convincing if he had sounded like he believed his own words, but as it was; she simply shook her head sharply.

"Don't, Daniel." She could not afford to even think about that right now. None of them could, really, though that did little to stop them wondering, even if only in the back of their minds.

The briefing room was eerily silent after the short exchange, no one quite daring to bring up the situation at hand, but not knowing what else to talk about. She sighed, refusing to turn from the window until she absolutely had to; feeling Teal'c and Daniel at each shoulder, flanking her as usual as they offered silent support and comfort against the knowledge that had yet to be confirmed. She could not help but think about the irony of the situation; of the fact that it was the Goa'uld whom were currently ripping their world apart by the seams, when they had thought them defeated for all these years. She wondered if maybe they had gotten a little too complacent without the threat of annihilation hanging over their heads.

Her morbid thoughts were interrupted when the door opened and the General walked in, forcing all of them to turn towards him with various expressions, mostly unreadable in the cases of herself, Daniel and Teal'c. Mitchell had whirled in his chair, but stood quickly upon seeing his CO entering, only to be waived back to his seat by the tired looking base commander. Vala had simply leaned over the table with a hopeful look that Sam couldn't bring herself to reciprocate. She knew the odds of survival for the people on the surface, her scientific mind had figured it out quicker than most, but she had not been able to bring herself to dash the hopes of her teammates.

"…lost contact with DC a little over ten minutes ago, though no one knows for sure what happened. NORAD lost their satellites after the Apollo went." Landry sounded exhausted, and looked worn and haggard.

"I don't need to tell you people that this is bad," he looked at each of them in turn, as though trying to impart something important to them with that simple gesture. They all stared back silently, even Daniel unwilling to be sarcastic about the impending apocalypse. This was not something to joke about, though they were all painfully aware of who probably would have thought that the perfect time for a biting comment or light-hearted joke specifically designed to break the tense mood.

Landry continued after a brief sigh, "We have no contact with the surface, and no way to know what exactly is going on up there. So I'm authorizing the evacuation of everyone in this facility to the Alpha site." They had all known it was coming, really. The Goa'uld were bombing the planet and they had lost contact with the surface. It was standard procedure in case of situations like this, though it normally involved important dignitaries and other politicians.

"We can't just- -"

"Do you not intend to-"

"Sir, with all due respe-"

"That's enough!" They all winced, collectively, except Teal'c who simply remained stoic, as their joint protests were cut off sharply. "I understand your positions, but we have our orders and we're going to stick to them." Daniel would later swear that the snort-turned-coughing fit that erupted at that statement was a result of choking on his own spit, but Sam knew better. The archeologist was of the opinion that Landry couldn't possibly understand their positions.

Mitchell looked defiant, but everyone in the room knew he would follow his orders, whether he agreed with them or not, just like the rest of them would do their duty and go through that gate with the rest of the SGC personnel. Like the General had said, they had their orders, and they had to get to them. It was a morose team that headed to the locker room, ignoring the trembling beneath their feet as they prepared to abandon the very world they had given everything for at various times in their careers.


	2. Chapter 1

**A**/**N**: Thank you for all the wonderful reviews, and I am so sorry for the long wait! College is eating my soul. I hope ya'll like this chapter!

All reviews are answered if I'm able!

Disclaimer: I don't own Stargate SG-1; I just borrow the characters and give them back when I'm done playing.

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"_Daniel!" _

"_Get to the gate, Sam!" _

"_Not withou-"_

"_GO!"_

_Daniel shoved her hard through the gate, crying out as the blast took him in the side and she watched in horror as he fell before she made it all the way through, too late to go back. Teal'c caught her on the other end as she dropped, her weight suddenly too heavy for her to bear alone, and she twisted her hands in his torn shirt, refusing to let go in case the universe wanted to take him away from her too. The white noise in her head blocked out everything except Daniel's final words, the look in his wide blue eyes as he pushed her, and the lack of fear that had always been there when it mattered. The warm, sticky feeling had her looking down at her hands where they remained twisted in the large Jaffa's shirt as he held her, and she choked at the sight of them. _

_They were covered in blood._

Sam jerked upright with a gasp, clutching the sheets with white-knuckled hands as she shook her head to rid it of lingering dream images. It had been a week; a whole damn week since Daniel pushed her through an open wormhole and didn't follow, and the nightmares were only getting worse. They were so real, like she was reliving the moment every night, only there were occasionally times when the whole bloody scene would be different in some small way that she knew wasn't right because she had been there, dammit, and oh god, she could never force herself to wake up before he died right in front of her. It always left her shaking and holding back tears, refusing to allow herself to cry.

It was her fault; she had left him behind, and she didn't deserve the privilege of tears to cleanse the gut-wrenching pain that gripped her every day. In some morbid way she welcomed the pain because it let her know she was still anchored to the here and now; that she hadn't drifted away to become something less than human that fought for life out of pure reflex instead of the will and want to live. She did want to live, most of the time. There was a tiny, traitorous kernel of hope that refused to be extinguished, always whispering in the back of her mind:

_You didn't see them die._

It was all she had to cling to in the darker hours when she was left wondering why and Teal'c wasn't around to gently remind her that they kept fighting because they didn't leave anyone behind, no matter the rumors about their deaths. Her people were still out there, sitting in Goa'uld prison cells or hiding amongst the natives of whatever planet they had been resourceful enough to escape to.

Sam sighed, watching her breath rise on the crisp night air until it disappeared as she slowly eased herself out of the cot that served as her bed in the cramped quarters she shared with three other women. She would never admit just how disconcerting it was to sleep with them when she was so used to her boys after all these years. Even Cam's snores would have been a welcome change from the dead silence that tended to permeate the room at night or the charged atmosphere after she woke from a nightmare to find the other three had been woken by her movements, but were clearly uncomfortable with saying anything about it.

It was those nights, like this night, that she would slip away wearing one of Jack's old shirts that she had been lucky enough to find in her locker before they'd left, and the recent development of a pilfered pair of Daniel's sweatpants that had to be rolled up several times at the waist to fit. It was, she knew, probably a mentally unhealthy habit that bordered on obsession, but there weren't any shrinks on their make-shift base to psychoanalyze her issues, and no one else would say anything about it. They all had their own ways to cope.

How long had it been since she'd just sat and looked at the stars? They winked above her in an alien sky as she leaned back on her hands in the grass to study the strange constellations, wondering if any of them held knowledge as to the whereabouts of her missing family. She closed her eyes tightly, squeezing them shut against the tears that burned them as her throat threatened to close up in response to the pain that stabbed through her chest at the thought.

_It wasn't supposed to be this way._

First had been Jack and Cassie, gone without a trace when their planet had been annihilated by the Goa-uld. They had no way of knowing if one or both had survived the initial bombing only to be taken as a slave from the ruined surface as so many others had. She couldn't count the times she had run into a vaguely familiar face when doing raids on several strong-holds purported to contain tau'ri survivors. It left her in shock each time they encountered a goa'uld that had taken a tau'ri host, but also filled her with a renewed sense of hope that maybe, just maybe, her general and her adopted daughter had survived.

Every new loss was like a raging river, eating away at that already-weathered kernel of hope inside until it was dull and hanging on with nothing but stubborn whispers in the back of her mind.

Daniel had been the most recent in a string of catastrophic losses, her personal interest notwithstanding, his loss was a blow for them as a whole, given his experience and varying skills that had proven a great help since their relocation. He was a people person and, despite his own obvious skills in repressing emotional issues, had done his best to play the part of councilor to anyone who needed it. He had been part of her grounding force those first few weeks, along with Teal'c; both of them resolved to keep her focused and distracted from the grief they all felt.

"Mama always said there'd be days like this." She couldn't quite stop the bitter laugh as she sat up, burrowing into the clothing she wore. There was a kind of comfort there, surrounded on all sides by the scents of two of the three men that were most important in her life. She ignored the sting of the cold air against her skin, instead pulling her knees up to rest her chin on them as she stared out over their squat little camp.

"Oh, how the mighty have fallen." She knew he was there instinctively, as she always did, but didn't turn around. She didn't have to look to know he was watching her impassively, the only expression of emotion visible being that in his dark eyes, or the small lines of his face. She kept her eyes forward as she continued her line of thought.

"Taken out by the Goa'uld. It's a little ironic, don't you think?" After all these years, all the threats they'd faced and beaten, and it's the Goa'uld that finally gets them. It was irony, pure and simple. Then again, maybe they had just been arrogant all these years, assuming they could tear down the regimes of gods and get away with it. All that sacrifice over eight long years and it was wasted now, on a planet that was little more than ruined rock. She shuddered and burrowed deeper against the cold feeling inside of her that had nothing to do with the temperature.

The large Jaffa said nothing as he moved to sink onto the ground beside her, sitting indian style and just close enough so that their sides brushed together, sharing body heat to ward away the cold. She knew he was still watching her, studying her face as intently as he could in the darkness. It was mostly intentional on her part; she had taken to using the dark to hide the gaunt look of hollow cheekbones and haunted eyes. He was the only one she would accept concern and sympathy from, playing the stoic, apathetic soldier in front of the rest of the population these days.

"We have retrieved Colonel Mitchell." His voice was even, and once the words registered she sucked in a breath and turned, finally, to stare at him.

"The Tok'ra offered their assistance, and he will be returned to us tomorrow." She could just make out the minute signs of relief on his face. He had taken up watching Cam as some solemn, self-appointed duty, and losing him on that supply run had been hard for Teal'c.

"That's …good, Teal'c. That's really good." It would raise morale a little, to get back one of their own, especially since he'd been gone for nearly a month.

Still, she couldn't help but feel apprehensive about it, knowing what he had gone through in the short span of time he'd been a host. It wasn't something they'd ever prepared him for, having thought that problem neutralized by the time he'd come into the picture. Not that they ever could prepare anyone for that eventuality. There wasn't anything in the galaxy that could prepare a person for becoming a prisoner inside their own head.


End file.
